3. I wonder if I'm the only one here who thinks that spending needs to be cut

I'm very good with money and am older. My strategy has always been to keep my income higher than my expenses and put a certain amount in investment accounts. I honestly don't see how any entity (government or private) can continue with massive shortfalls. But maybe I'm just stupid.

6. Personal finances and national finances are utterly different beasts

The nation doesn't make it's money from external parties, and then spend its money on external parties. You do. Money comes in from outside (your job) and it flows outside (your expenses). A country makes its money from itself and spends its money on itself*.

As a result, what's good for your own pocketbook is completely different that what's good for the nation's pocketbook.

Imagine a situation where a husband works for his wife, and buys goods only from his wife. There's no other sources of income or expenses. What happens when the husband starts spending less? The wife receives less money from his purchases. Which means she has to cut his salary. Which means he has to reduce his spending further. And so on.

Slashing our spending wouldn't actually reduce debt. Because the economy is depressed, that slashing also reduces income. So the cuts create a vicious cycle. Just take a gander at most of Europe to see how it works.

What the country needs to do is spend more now, in order to stimulate the economy. Then once the economy is humming along nicely, we should cut spending when the booming economy can absorb the cuts.

*It's possible for imports and exports to change this somewhat, but the US is not in that situation.

15. Until eternity

We're actually constantly paying off debt and issuing new debt. So we constantly get market feedback about our debt. And the market is saying they want LOTS more debt.

Inflation-protected debt is literally paying a negative interest rate. Give the government $100, get back $98 and investors are buying it.

Japan demonstrates that you can run massive deficits for decades, and not have a problem with debt as long as you have your own currency. And before you say "OMG! WHAT ABOUT GREEEEEEEEECE!", take a look at that "have your own currency" phrase.

Could there be a future problem with too much debt? Sure. But because we have our own currency, it's not going to appear out of nowhere. Interest rates will take a while to creep up to a problematic level.

Of course, we should try to run small-to-no deficit during boom years. But people are only freaking out over debt now for one of two reasons:
1) It suits their political desires - they want a terrible economy as long as a Democrat is in the white house
2) They keep thinking of government debt in terms of personal debt. Such as you appear to be doing here. It isn't the same.

18. Theoretically, higher interest rates

as private investment is squeezed out by government debt. But we're at incredibly low interest rates.

Too much debt too quickly can cause inflation. But in a depressed economy such as ours, you can print a metric crapload of money without causing inflation - in fact the fed has been doing so and we still have no inflation.

If people stop wanting to buy our debt, then there would be very large problems as we had to pay out high yields to attract buyers. But as I mentioned, the market loves our debt so much that they're willing to lose money buying it.

There is no mechanism by which debt would go from it's current "not a problem at all" to "OMG WE'RE DOOOOOOOOMED" in a short period of time. Which means we would have time to address the problems before they became large problems.

28. And now you're back to 2 replies ago.

7. Companies often borrow so they have enough capital to create products.

The profit from the products allow them to pay back the debt.
If they try austerity when they have no products to sell they will die.

The general theory is to spend a large amount for a short time to get the economy going. This will create debt but once the economy is humming along by itself, then you cut back.
The problem is tha the Republicans don't believe in this idea and have prevented it from working.

It's like your engine is dying from lack of fuel and the Republicans think that's the time to drain the tank.

13. I believe lots of farmers do that.

They have to. Seeds, fertilizer, fuel, machinery, etc cost money. They don't usually have that type of capital available that allows them to buy what they need. Real farmers aren't normally rich enough to do it.

12. The budget for the govt is more complex than one for a family

especially if the family is only one or two that are retired and have their house paid off and don't use the car as much as when they were working.

If you own a home that would be a major expense that usually is more than your annual wages. Along with a car and other possible long term expenses that were through a loan. If you go by what others complaining about not budgeting properly they forget that they too generally have major items that were not paid in full at time of purchase.

When the voters 'elected' Bush in 2000 they elected a fool that did not bother paying attention to the daily briefings warning of possible terrorist attacks. Which might have averted 9/11. They intentionally intended from day 1 to invade Iraq because Clown Bush wanted revenge for his Poppy Bush. They made up evidence that there were WMD in Iraq to justify a war. Because of 9/11 they reduce taxes to encourage sales. All of that increases the deficit which the American people went along with. As long as people get upset about their taxes being raised (back to pre 2001 levels) it will be difficult to balance the budget. Unless the rich are tax at a higher level and the defense budget reduced to more appropriate levels.